The mindset shift: your AVN position was built in the other eleven months
Most vendor brands prepare for AVN by focusing on the negotiation itself. Amazon makes an ask, and the conversation inside the business becomes: how much can we push back?
I understand why. Consulterce's survey of 227 Vendors found this year's AVN took just over three months on average, and 55% described theirs as challenging or confrontational. When it feels like that, the ask is all anyone can see.
But by the time the ask arrives, much of your position has already been decided. It was built across the year, in your range, your pricing, your availability, your advertising and your operations.
So start with a different question: why is Amazon asking, and what does your own data tell you about where you stand?
Start with the number your Vendor Manager is managing to
Vendor Managers live by Net PPM: Amazon's profit margin on your products after cost price, vendor funding and sales discounts are taken into account. When that margin isn't where Amazon wants it to be, expect pressure to improve the economics of the account.
You don't have to guess at it. You can analyse Net PPM in Vendor Central, product by product, and see where the pressure is coming from. A falling selling price, a rising cost price, increased sales discounts or changes in vendor funding can all drag it down.
It isn't the whole picture. Net PPM doesn't capture all of Amazon's costs associated with serving your account. But it is a key profitability metric for your Vendor Manager, so it is the right place to begin.
Separate the terms ask from the margin problem
This is the distinction I'd most like Vendor teams to take into AVN. More terms are one way to improve Amazon's margin. They aren't the only way, and they can be an expensive solution for the brand.
If the real issue is a handful of products where Amazon's economics aren't working, giving additional terms across the whole range can be a blunt fix. You improve Amazon's margin on your best sellers as well as the problem lines, without necessarily addressing what caused the problem in the first place.
The better question is: what is actually driving the margin problem, and which commercial levers could fix it?
There may be several:
Fix the problem lines directly, through cost price, pricing, pack sizes or range decisions.
Reduce Amazon's cost to serve, through supply-chain programmes, fulfilment models or packaging improvements.
Grow profitable sell-through, focusing investment on products where the economics work for both you and Amazon.
Look at your wider distribution strategy. If other distributors or retailers are selling your products online more cheaply, Amazon may respond by lowering its retail price. If the cost price Amazon pays you hasn't changed, that can reduce Net PPM.
This is exactly the kind of commercial work we do with Vendor brands at ZEAL. We look beyond the immediate Amazon ask to understand why the economics aren't working, and then identify which levers can improve them.
Sometimes that's terms. Sometimes it's pricing, range, distribution, supply chain, advertising or conversion. Often it's a combination.
The point is to diagnose the commercial problem before deciding on the solution.
A smaller ask isn't always a better deal
It is easy to judge an AVN by how much of Amazon's original ask you managed to negotiate on. But that isn't the number that ultimately matters.
What matters is what the final agreement does to your own profitability.
An additional point of trade terms may sound relatively small in the negotiation room. Applied across everything Amazon buys from you, however, it becomes a permanent change to the economics of the account. You need to understand what that means for your margin - by product and across the total Amazon P&L - before agreeing to it.
The 2026 AVN survey data from Consulterce makes this particularly interesting. Half of Vendors managed to hold or reduce their trade terms. Among those that did concede, the average increase was 116 basis points. And Vendors already investing more than 25% of net sales in trade terms weren't protected from further asks: 73% conceded again.
So I wouldn't measure a successful AVN by how far you negotiated Amazon down from its opening position.
I'd measure it by the commercial outcome you negotiated for the business.
That means knowing your red lines before you enter the room, modelling what different scenarios do to your profitability, and thinking in terms of trades rather than concessions.
If you give something, what are you getting in return?
Your position is built all year, by more than one team
I won't pretend the AVN always feels like a partnership. The research shows just how difficult these negotiations can become, with some Vendors experiencing measures such as Buy Box suppression, order stops and traffic diversion during negotiations.
But your commercial position isn't created in the negotiation room. Much of it has been built during the other eleven months.
It's in the products Amazon is buying from you, the margin it makes on them, your availability and operational performance, how well those products sell through, and where you're investing to create demand.
The problem is that responsibility for those things rarely sits with one person.
The Commercial team negotiates the terms. Finance understands the P&L. Supply Chain manages availability and forecasting. Ecommerce might own the catalogue and conversion. Advertising may sit with another internal team or an external agency.
Yet on Amazon, all of those decisions ultimately meet in the same commercial account.
That's exactly why we work across the whole picture at ZEAL. Before deciding that a brand needs to give more terms, spend more on advertising or change its range, we want to understand what is actually happening commercially.
Where is Amazon making money? Where are you making money? Which products are driving growth but destroying margin? Where are operational issues creating unnecessary cost? Where could better advertising, content or conversion improve sell-through? And what does all of that mean for the position you take into AVN?
Sometimes the answer is strategic. Sometimes it's operational. Sometimes it's advertising or optimisation. Often it's a combination.
The important thing is that somebody joins the dots.
Because your AVN position isn't something you create once a year.
You're building it every month.
Questions to work through before kick-off
Start with a check you can run this week.
Pull Net PPM for your top products and put your own product margin alongside it. Look at where the economics work for both sides, where they work for only one, and where there is an obvious problem to investigate.
That gives you a much better starting point for understanding the commercial tension in the account.
Then work through these questions with your leadership team - not only whoever owns the Amazon relationship:
Is Amazon's ask really about terms, or is there an underlying margin problem we could solve another way?
Which products are helping or hurting the economics of the account?
What are our red lines, and where do we have genuine leverage?
What could we trade, and what would we want from Amazon in return?
What does each possible agreement do to our profitability, product by product and across the total account?
What could we change outside AVN - in range, pricing, distribution, availability, advertising, conversion or operations - to improve the commercials?
In my experience, one of the hardest questions is what you actually want from Amazon.
Most teams can tell me what they don't want to give. Far fewer have written down what they want to get.
Write your position down before anyone discusses Amazon's number
If I could ask one thing of every Vendor team before AVN, it would be this:
Put your commercial position on one page.
Understand the economics on both sides. Know your red lines. Know what you're prepared to trade. Know what you want in return. And model what the different outcomes mean for your own profitability.
Because once Amazon's number is on the table, it's very easy for that number to become the negotiation.
Your job is to make sure the conversation is bigger than that.
If you're an Amazon Vendor brand looking to approach your next AVN with greater confidence, or want support turning your agreement into profitable sales growth. please book a discovery call using the link above or email emma@zealagency.co.uk.
Got an Amazon challenge you want to talk through?
Whether you have a consultancy project in mind, want to understand how we could support your team, or simply want to pick our brains, get in touch with the team. We’re always happy to start with a conversation.
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